After the Army, I was out of money and decided to try working for a living. I was hired by Geoscience, an MIT spinoff that specialized in electrical measurements. Geologists and geophysicists are crazy. For example,…
Only geologists regard a rainy day as good working weather because it keeps the mosquitoes and deer flies off.
Unless you live in Yosemite Park, the best places to find rock outcrops are road cuts and streams. So, field geologists spend a lot of time walking up and down the middle of streams, hopping from one slippery, moss-covered rock to the next. It is a really good day when you make it to lunch without falling into the stream.
Only geologists will routinely walk twenty-miles into the boonies all alone without telling anyone where they are going. There is an unwritten law that says if you slip off a wet rock in a stream and break your leg, you deserve to die of starvation for being clumsy.
If you look at the list of people killed during every volcanic eruption, there will usually be a couple of volcanologists. This is because the best time to get up close and personal in researching a volcano is when an eruption is imminent. Given the number of volcanic eruptions annually, I am amazed that there are any volcanologists left.